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Saying that Romney lost Mass because “there are so many liberals there” is not answering the question. It is simply restating the question. Of course liberals didn’t support Romney.

Scott’s question asks why is it, if Obama was really elected by of the welfare-seeking, “takers” who are looking for a handout without “giving” anything back ... as has been argued repeatedly all over this forum ... how do you explain a state like Mass, which has a very low percentage of voters in this category, going to Obama???

My theory is "guilt"; and also in line with Buzz's Roman Catholic theory. Old man Kennedy built the family fortune without much compassion, but the later generation, who inherited the wealth then felt compelled to prove that they would use that wealth constructively to do good. Guilt is a large portion of RC education (I was also raised as RC), and also part of Irish culture and my own Italian culture; also Jewish culture. Old Joe Kennedy was considered "nouveau riche", and he encouraged the next generation to seek out the societal acceptance of high society ... which they did very successfully.

We have also seen, over time, that the politicians become rich through their "service", while they spend money of others very magnanimously. They rarely suffer any economic duress from the laws they impose on the rest of the country. Note, how they have provided such luxury health care and retirement benefits for themselves; and have, up to recently, absolved themselves from the rules of "insider trading. And not a twinge of conscience in voting themselves such largesse not available to the general population.

There must be a few voters with liberal views who actually are not looking for a handout.

Surely there are. Yet, there are also liberals who take full advantage of the tax loopholes available to them. While I can't blame someone for minimizing taxes, if those liberals truly believe in the social compassion they espouse, why is that belief not strong enough to eschew those loopholes to "donate" more to the cause of their social beliefs?

It occurs to me that some like Clooney and Angelina Jolie, liberals and wealthy, undoubtedly use tax loopholes to "donate" less to social issues in the US, but donate more to helping abjectly poor in other countries. I'm not criticizing the good they do, but, evidently, they feel they are the best ones to judge how they use their wealth to improve the human condition. Don't they trust the govt's judgment to use that money in the best way? Those with less wealth don't get to make choices like that in the same way.

It's also true that "giving" to someone in need makes the giver feel good. Paying taxes rarely has the same emotional reward.
JS

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G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

I will start by saying I am no fan of our current President but not much on Romney either.

1. Rated #1 for having a highly educated population."BA/BS or higher"
2. One of the lowests levels of poverty.
3. One of the highest median household incomes.
4. 75 percent white. Just put this in to show that there is a small population of minorities.
5. Governor Mitt Romney.

How could he not carry his home state?

Why would any major college location skew liberal? They are supposed to be intelligent & it's been many times proven that enabling creates bad behavior. Who can answer that?

When reading the "Bell Curve" the poor white trash wanted to feel superior to someone so it ended up being the blacks that they felt superior to, in many cases not justified . The "Bell Curve" used a poor white trash population as the test group. Maybe the need to feel superior to someone exists at a higher level than us common folk realize .

To get elected as a republican in the northeast one has to be moderate economically and liberal socially. That was the Romney before the primary and the Romney after the first debate. His problem was that folks believed that the socially conservative would pull his strings...that simple.

One of the best questions I have seen on POTUS. One thing that has crossed my mind in the past is the religious differences. In the NE there are a lot of Episcopals, Unitarians, and also Catholics. Not so many evangelicals. Historically Catholics I know have supported Democrats. I am not sure why but my guess is the Catholic Church's focus on social justice. If not for the abortion issue, I believe they would lean more heavily Democrat. I have life long friends who grew up Catholic who are very conservative. Without exception they all have abandoned the Catholic Church and now go to Evangelical Churches.

I was also raised RC, and can agree that social justice and charity are a key element. I did not go to Catholic schools, however. My family could not afford to pay tuition for a non-public school, even though Catholic schools are often very low tuition. Back at that time, though, public schools were not as much of a mess as they are today. The choice of Catholic school was more for the religious content added to the curriculum.

Public schools did give "released time" each week to attend religious instruction of choice. Those who did not choose to participate in that could have a study hall. In fact, in my early years in NYC schools, Jewish children were excused from school, without penalty, on Jewish holidays. My neighborhood's ethnic mix was primarily Jewish and Italian (who actually have many cultural similarities). That was in the South Bronx in the early 50s.

And, yes, I left the Catholic church and moved to Lutheranism. Lutherans are not so far removed from RCs in their rituals and beliefs, but they are more moderate on social issues than RC. I would have to classify myself as "conservative" v. "liberal". I disagreed with RC on contraception. My views on abortion are a "mixture", as you could probably tell from my feelings on 3rd timester abortions and the fate of babies who survive late-term abortions.

I came from a very Catholic family. Grandparents And aunts & uncles who helped build parishes and Catholic Schools. I attended Catholic School. I blame my liberalism on the message of social justice that was drilled into my head as a kid. I have talked about it a little here, trying to figure out how Christians could relate to the teachings of Ayn Rand and I am mostly quite surprised by the response I get.

As you and I have discussed before ... I believe Ayn Rand was influenced, even if unconsciously, by Christian belief. Christianity, in its original form, emphasized a relationship between an individual and God, without the need for an "intermediary" of a formal church heirarchy (as had developed in Judaism). It also focused on free will, and the value of each individual. The Golden Rule was a central theme. Ayn Rand's philosophy was also based on individualism and of humans entering into relationships with fairness to both parties and free will. How ironic that the RC church should eventually develop the same kind of heirarchy that Christ faulted in Judaism.

i could be all wet, but I have thought about this before. The fact that they are so educated and wealthy could be just a byproduct of the concentration of terrific educational institutions there.

I think that MA is heavily under the influence of the Kennedy "rule" over such a long period of time. It would be interesting to see how the highly educated and wealthy are distributed throughout the state. There may be heavy concentrations in certain areas, and other groups in inner cities who are less educated and less wealthy, but have other reasons for voting Dem.

reading my post I can see that I didn't really address your question. Just rambling about one factor I think might explain the NE liberal leanings...

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G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.